Gregory met the man at the park on Thursday and decided then and there that he should kill him.

The man introduced himself as Xerxes Brown and claimed to be an importer of silk. Gregory believed none of it, but that didn’t matter for soon this Xerxes Brown character would be importing nothing but decay.

They had literally bumped into each other while taking laps around the lake.

“Oh, excuse me,” Gregory had said.

The man smiled and put his hands up. “No harm done.”

Gregory nodded.

The man put his hand out. “I’m Xerxes Brown.”

“Gregory Myers.” They shook hands and spoke briefly and awkwardly, exchanging random bits of personal information much to Gregory’s dismay. Finally, he had to end the conversation. “Well, I do have to get doing. Have a nice afternoon,” he said, continuing on his jog.

He didn’t like the look of Xerxes’ face. It held a perpetual smile as if the man was incapable of being unhappy. Gregory hated that. It took much self-control not to vomit during the short conversation they had had.

Gregory hated the fact that there were people who could force joy into their countenance no matter what the occasion. He knew the man would probably smile through a hurricane. He would have probably smiled through the Holocaust, telling everyone everything would work out for the best. Unadulterated joy and positivism angered Gregory to no end.

Gregory could tell that about the man just by one interaction. It sickened him. He needed to do something about it. Though he’d never been violent before (not unless you include the time he stabbed a classmate with a pencil in elementary school) Gregory had a plan formed in his head about how he would kill this man, this Xerxes Brown.

Now it was Saturday and after checking on mother, Gregory went to the park again. He brought some popcorn to feed the ducks and sat down at one of the benches in front of the lake.

The ducks approached him and soon so did Xerxes Brown.

Gregory nodded at the man, swallowing the bile that was rising up his throat and threatening to flood his mouth. “Morning.”

“Yes,” Xerxes said. “Good morning.” He had a seat next to Gregory on the bench and pulled out his wallet.

Gregory watched as the man flipped through small scraps of paper, sugar packets, and raggedy dollar bills until the man seemingly found what he had been looking for. He pulled it out and held it in front of Gregory’s face. It was a photograph of poor quality, one a person might overpay for at tourist spots where they have to step into a booth and smile awkwardly at an unseen camera.

“This is my mother,” Xerxes said.

Gregory grimaced at the photograph. An elderly woman clad in a blouse almost as white as her face stared at him. There was no smile to break the wrinkles that had been carved on her face. Gregory was surprised no one else was in the picture with her. Why would the elderly woman get into the photo-booth by herself?

“Lovely,” he said.

Xerxes moved the photo closer to Gregory’s face. “Just lovely? Look at her eyes. She has beautiful eyes. My father said they were made of marbles, beautiful marbles, imported from Germany.”

“You don’t say?” Gregory looked at the woman’s eyes and saw that they were indeed beautiful, yes, but also frightening. They stared at him accusingly, like a judge or a jury.

“She was blind, you know. Couldn’t see a thing. Didn’t know what her children looked like. Quite sad.”

“Oh,” Gregory said, finding himself caring less and less about this man’s mother and her blindness or any blindness in the entire world.

Xerxes said, “What about your mother? Do you have a mother?”

Gregory groaned. What possible reason would this Xerxes have to need to know about Gregory’s mother? “Yes, I do.”

“Do you have a picture of her?”

Gregory sighed. “No, I do not.”

Xerxes put the photograph back into his wallet. “Well that’s just ridiculous. Who doesn’t keep a picture of their mother?”

“I don’t.”

Xerxes smiled wide, wider than ever. “I know. You just said that.”

“Well, I better get going,” Gregory said, getting up from the bench. A hand grabbed his arm.

“Don’t go just yet, Greg.”

“Let go!” Gregory said, flexing his arm back and feeling Xerxes’ arm flutter like paper.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. No harm done, right?”

Gregory shrugged and walked off.

“No harm done!” Xerxes called out from behind him.

Gregory now knew the idea in his head had to come into fruition sooner rather than later. He had the plan. He had the knives.

He was almost out of the park when a whimpering sound from behind him made him stop. Was the man crying?

Gregory turned around to find Xerxes biting into his wallet. He walked back slowly, apprehensive about the man and what possible plans he might have in store for Gregory.

“Christ, what are you doing?” Gregory said, approaching. He wanted to grab the wallet out of the man’s mouth but did not want to risk being bitten. Also, he actually found himself wanting to see what the man’s goal was. Did he want to consume the entire wallet, mother’s picture and all? Did he just want to take a bite of the faux leather simply to gain attention?

Yes, that must have been it. Gregory had been tricked into walking back to the man. He slapped Xerxes in the head. “Stop, will you?”

Half the wallet fell onto Xerxes’ lap and the other half was quickly sucked into his mouth and swallowed.

“Jesus Christ,” Gregory said, walking backward. He started to run out of the park. If he would have looked back at Xerxes, he would have seen the man regurgitate his mother’s picture into his palm and put it back into his mouth.

* * *

When Gregory walked into his mother’s hospice room, the smell of leather slithered into his nostrils like warm death. Something was wrong.

He saw his mother just where he had left her but she looked different. She looked flat.

It didn’t look like she had lost weight but when he touched her, she simply felt flat. He saw something else that was different. Her clothes. They were all made of silk.

Gregory fell backwards into the chair next to the bed and put his head into his hands. Were his mental facilities failing as much as hers? He rubbed his eyes and looked back at her. It was worse this time. She looked deflated, the silk garments resembling nothing more than purple death shrouds.

He dropped to his knees and grabbed his mother’s weak, flat hand. For the first time in more than twenty years, he said a prayer. Then he left to get his knives.

* * *

Xerxes Brown was throwing popcorn to the ducks when he felt something cold tickle his throat.

The blade tore open his windpipe and kept slicing until there was a crimson deluge down his chest.

Gregory stood behind the park bench, one hand on Xerxes’ hair and the other eliminating the man’s throat. The blood that splashed down before him had no real effect on Gregory. He was neither pleased nor disgusted. The blood was just there like the rain or sunshine.

Something fell out of the gaping throat wound and slid down to Xerxes’ crotch. Gregory let go of the man’s hair and reached down to pick it up. It was the picture of Xerxes’ mother. The elderly woman still stared at him with Germanic marble eyes but now she was clad in purple silk and there was a smile on her face as wide as the horizon.

Through a broken throat, Xerxes laughed. His body burped out his last words.

“No harm done.”